Campaigners staged a protest outside council offices to stop an incinerator being built - and vowed their battle has only just begun.

About 20 people gathered in St Anne's Crescent, Lewes, yesterday where Cabinet members of East Sussex County Council were discussing how to tackle the county's rubbish.

Earlier this year a Government inspector ruled the proposed incinerator site at North Quay, on the edge of Newhaven, was safe.

However, the impact of waste burners is fiercely disputed.

The demonstrators, who came from Newhaven, Telscombe, Lewes, Seaford and Saltdean, argue burning rubbish creates health risks ranging from cancers and heart disease to allergies and breathing problems.

Onyx, the company behind the proposed incinerator, says barbecues and domestic bonfires cause more damage to the environment.

The company, which last year won a 25-year, £1 billion contract to manage waste in East Sussex, has warned there will be virtually no more landfill sites in East Sussex by 2008.

The county produces 400,000 tonnes of household rubbish a year.

Marina Pepper, a Liberal Democrat councillor and mayor of Telscombe who was at the demonstration, said the county's rubbish mountain had to be tackled at source by recycling and composting.

Coun Pepper said: "They haven't seen anything yet. The protests will grow and grow.

"We will fight it every step of the way because incinerators are wrong.

"Locally they pollute and globally they contribute to global warming through releasing greenhouse gases."

County Council leader Peter Jones, Conservative councillor for Rye, was at the Cabinet meeting at County Hall.

He said: "We were considering amendments to our local waste plan that were suggested by the Government inspector.

"He accepted the incinerator site so I don't see why these people were demonstrating.

"We made a sensible and rational case as to why there should be an incinerator at Newhaven and it was accepted.

"Onyx will make a planning application some time next year and depending on what they ask for depends on whether they get permission."

The Cabinet rejected the inspector's call to increase levels of recycling in the county.

Coun Jones said: "In the local plan we already had a target above the Government minimum requirements."

Protesters are planning another demonstration at the council base on December 7 when there will be a full council meeting.

There will be carol singers singing alternative carols and a Father Christmas explaining why packaging is not just for Christmas.